Only Welsh Can Save Us Now!

The Language, Not The People

Although - I dunno, are there any Welsh superheroes knocking about?  

     Actually I think I can answer my own question:  Yes.  From 2000AD's genre-subverting "Zenith" waaaaaay back in the Eighties, there was <pauses to think> the "Red Dragon".  Art!

Red if not very dragon-y

     Y Ddraig Goch, apparently.  Things do not end well for him - we shall say no more, because you may not have read the series.  Well worth pursuing, as Zenith, the titular character, starts out as a shallow, selfish, cowardly manufactured pop star and thanks to being challenged by other superhumans and circumstance, ends up a shallow, selfish superhero.

     None of which is what I wanted to be talking about; inevitably, BOOJUM!s erratic aim focusses on everything but the matter in hand, which is -

     Codewords!

     Yes again.  Look, if you don't like it, go off and polish your brass hand.

     So, the letter "I" has been given, and we have "20,12,6,15, I" as the clues.  What word of five letters that ends in "I" can possibly be apposite?

     CORGI.

     Yes a guess, yet one with a touch of merit to it.  Of course - obviously! - Your Humble Scribe then began to wonder about 'Corgi', and if Art will put down his bowl of coal -

Not really what I was aiming for.

     This was a brilliant model when you were a kid - O yes this is an aside in case you were wondering - with machine-guns that pop out of the front bumpers when you press down on the suspension, and an ejector seat that propels the bad guy fifty feet into the air (thirty feet being lethal height) and a pop-up bulletproof shield to protect the driver.  More advanced models had rotating number plates and wheel-shredders - okay Art, I forgive you this once.  Now - get it right!

CAUTION!  Never forget this is a domesticated wolf

     This is the Corgi, a breed of dog that hails from Pembrokeshire in Wales, and is HM The Queen's favourite type of dog.  STAND UP AND SALUTE THE QUEEN!  Pikers.  Who carried the flag during "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"?  James Bond.  Who parachuted into the London Olympics in 2012?  James Bond and HM The Queen - 

Eat your heart out, Tsar Putin

    ANYWAY what I wanted to focus on was the Welsh language.  You see (or hear) the Welsh for "Dog" is "Ci" and for "Dwarf" is "Cor", so you put them together and you get -

     Well - okay.  You have to admit the Corgi does look kind of sawed-off at the knees  as a breed.  So you see, only the Welsh language can help us now.  Or, rather, me.  Except I'm not at all sure that 20 is "C" <disappears into middle distance worrying>

Back To Simon Stalenhag And His Alien Invasion Pictures

You have to give credit to Simon, his artwork is absolutely pin, and very well-observed in copying the minutiae of South Canadian urban living (because one cannot imagine this is happening in Sweden or Norway - not enough snow).  If Art will import the first picture -

     Hmmmmm speaking as a potential alien invader myself, I'd rather like to get more work out of my hapless minions than lying there in the open, where any passing vehicle will turn a couple of them into ground pound.  Are we supposed to infer from those cracks in the tarmac that this has been going on for a while?  And by two of them lying in the road, un-rendered dead, that there is little urban traffic in neighbourhoods?  Art!

     Ooops.  Spoke too soon about snow.  Not sure what's going on here, except it's either dawn or dusk, and someone is practicing their javelin hurling skills.  Neither person seems bothered by alien aircraft zooming by mere feet over their heads, so perhaps they're just jaded since this happens a hundred times a day?  Answers on a postcard to the Comments section.  

Enough Of That, Now Of This!

Testing to destruction is a serious scientific and engineering concept, which can reveal valuable properties and behaviour of the equipment in question, as well as result in a satisfying explosion.

     Here enter the Finns Lauri and Anni, who are living limbs of mischief.  Their Youtube channel "Beyond The Press" has scads of videos where they answer questions that most people haven't dared ask: Can you make a hot tub out of ice? (yes); what happens if you drop a tin of mushrooms into a fryer full of boiling oil? (a huge explosion).  Today it was "What happens if you take the speed regulator off an elderly engine?  Explode or collapse?"  Art!

     Here the equipment is running normally, to provide a benchmark for the abnormal running.

     The abuse begins.  To be clear, in order to have this experiment work,  Lauri filled up this unit's oil reservoir with extra oil, mixed in with diesel.

     Here we see some of the gimmickry they resort to in order to have the engine run at speeds wildly beyond those it was designed to operate at.

     In normal use there is hardly any smoke; Lauri reckons this is the excess oil being burned off as smoke as the whole assemblage judders and rocks alarmingly.  It may not explode, it may well slump into a pile of scrap metal parts glowing red hot.

     Sadly you cannot see the engine shaking itself apart as it runs at about eight times the speed it was designed for, clanking, vibrating and -

     - catching fire.  Eventually the whole thing settled into a groaning heap of oily scrap metal, satisfying enough even if there was no explosion <sad face>.  Lauri then mentions that he wants to try this with a lawnmower engine ... <happy happy face>.

Finally -

Hmmmmm so we are nearly at count.  Yet I have not prevaricated about solemnous prognostications and other shizzle, because I had a monograph about how Gerry Anderson predicted the future so successfully that he must have had access to a time machine (also Fred Hoyle we're looking at you).

     O well.  Let us look forward tomorrow with derring tales of dashing do in the Sea of Marmara, where British and Australian submariners were immortalised by South Canadian author Thomas Pynchon! (that's what it says here, did I turn over two pages by accident?)

Ottoman your battle stations!